| NEWS | Cash Flow Wendy Rogers’ campaign money comes from beyond Arizona. BY KATYA SCHWENK T his fall, Nick Jongebloed, a wellness coach out in Lewisville, North Carolina, began to pay attention to one particular lawmaker in Arizona — Wendy Rogers. He had no connection to the state. But he was captivated by her social media crusades on voter fraud and believed Rogers when she said that she was fighting for a “movement” beyond just Arizona. He became a $15-a-month contributor to her campaign. As Arizona’s high-profile, far-right state lawmaker begins her campaign for re-election, Rogers has plenty of money in her political war chest. Much of it comes from people like Jongebloed: small-time donors with little connection to Arizona but are devoted to Rogers’ platform. A Phoenix New Times analysis found that donations came from every state in the country, spiking when Rogers appeared on far-right podcasts or collected endorsements. This following has given Rogers signifi- cant resources, despite being rebuked and censured by her colleagues in the Senate in recent weeks. This, despite her refusal to apologize for increasingly unhinged comments, which critics say often tacitly endorse white nationalism and racist conspiracies. Rogers is a 67-year-old Air Force veteran and business owner. She frequently plays up her age and military service, calling herself at times a “sweet grandma,” and at other times a “hardcore fighter patriot.” Over the last decade, she has run for office six times. Rogers did not win one until 2020, when she secured her seat in the Arizona Senate. She has used her emerging national profile and cash to push a flood of radical legislation, including a “Donald Trump Day” state holiday, a ban on voting machines in elections, and diverting $700 million to border wall construction at the Arizona-Mexico border. Though some of her bills have stalled, including one to fund the border wall, others have garnered momentum at the state capitol, alarming critics. The Washington Post wrote a recent 8 feature on the national influence Rogers has cultivated from Arizona, framing Rogers as an example of a new brand of far-right politics. As the Post put it, for some, Rogers’ success has become emblematic of “the political and financial incentives of going to extremes.” And the donations have kept pouring in. Fellow Senate members — even promi- nent ones — hardly come close to the figures that Rogers has posted. Republican Senate majority whip Sonny Borrelli, who represents a district along the California border that includes Lake Havasu City, raised around $13,000 in 2021, the same period that Rogers raised her $2.5 million. Democratic minority whip Martin Quezada, meanwhile, raised a little less than $80,000 in that time. Put another way, Rogers raised more than nine times as much in an off-cycle year as the two most powerful state lawmakers combined, during an election. House Speaker Russell “Rusty” Bowers and Senate President Karen Fann took in $270,000 in new contributions in their 2020 bids for office. A closer look at the money she raised, largely from individual donations like Jongebloed’s, demonstrates how dedicated a following she has built across the country. Of the tens of thousands of donations that Rogers received, the vast majority — around 85 percent of the total number of individual donations, according to Phoenix New Times’ analysis of the data — came from out of state. And they came from every state in the nation. Arizona topped the donations, at 8,389, closely followed by California at nearly 7,000. But Rogers picked up at least a hundred donations from every other state, save North Dakota, which totaled only 97. Thousands hailed from Texas, Florida, and Colorado. Donations came in even from Puerto Rico and Guam. Back in North Carolina, Jongebloed said Rogers’ platform was “bigger than just her community.” He was particularly taken in by her claims that she is trying to uncover widespread (and debunked) elec- tion fraud across the country. “What she is fighting for, for her constituents, are the same things that I wish that I had representatives fighting for here in my state,” Jongebloed said. “Their discoveries [in Arizona] will, in turn, impact other areas of the country.” Jongebloed is deeply convinced, he said, that the electoral system is rigged. He wanted his representatives, he said, “to give me confidence that my elections are legitimate and my vote counts.” Rogers was working for this, he said. Rogers is currently gearing up for what could be a bitter race to keep her Senate seat. After redistricting in the fall, both she and like-minded conservative Republican Jacob Tyler Dunn Arizona State Senator Wendy Rogers has cultivated a national base. Senator Kelly Townsend found themselves in the same district. Currently, Rogers represents a sprawling rural district that includes her home in Flagstaff but also portions of Gila, Yavapai, and Navajo counties. Townsend currently represents District 16, which includes much of Mesa and Apache Junction. The two will compete in the newly drawn Seventh District, which stretches from Flagstaff to Globe. Despite her popularity on the right in Arizona, Townsend has raised a tiny frac- tion of Rogers’ haul. Townsend’s cumula- tive annual report for 2021 listed just $9,300 in total income, $6,756 of which was from individual contributions. During their time in the Arizona Senate, Townsend and Rogers have appeared to be political allies. Rogers endorsed her fellow senator in her short-lived run for U.S. Congress this year. But Townsend has recently rebuked Rogers for some of her more extreme comments, writing on Twitter that Rogers’ was “endorsing” white supremacists. “Good and decent people are also free to find it repulsive and un-American,” Townsend wrote. Rhetorically, Rogers has shown little restraint in going to extremes. Last month, her appearance at the America First Political Action Conference, as well as social media tirades that deployed anti- Semitic tropes and slurs against trans people, drew a rebuke from colleagues in the Senate. AFPAC is a conference organized by political pundit and right-wing personality Nick Fuentes, who has a long history of espousing white nationalism. Rogers gave a prerecorded speech, alongside >>p 11 Wall of Silence Wendy Rogers’ records show nada, despite her claims. BY ELIAS WEISS recent Phoenix New Times look into her personal communications revealed the word “border” didn’t appear once in any of her emails, text messages, or social media direct messages since she took office. On her website, she claims there is a A “major crisis at the border” and that her constituents are begging for a change. Senate attorneys revealed this isn’t the case. More than 700 miles of towering steel bollards demarcate some of the U.S.-Mexico border. A higher percentage of Arizona’s border with Mexico is fenced off, compared to any of the other three Southwestern border states of California, New Mexico, and Texas. Republicans have sought to wall off Arizona’s entire 373-mile border with its international neighbor to the south since Pat Buchanan, President Ronald Reagan’s communications chief, floated his first presidential bid in 1992. Peddling the fear of an immigrant invasion was at the fore- front of his campaign. Reagan rejected the construction of a fence along America’s border with Mexico in 1980. >>p 13 rizona State Senator Wendy Rogers is no stranger to ranting about securing the border, but a MARCH 31ST– APRIL 6TH, 2022 PHOENIX NEW TIMES | MUSIC | CAFE | FILM | CULTURE | NIGHT+DAY | FEATURE | NEWS | OPINION | FEEDBACK | CONTENTS | phoenixnewtimes.com
